By Jim Crowhurst Originally 2010, updated 2024
Hey, Armand Moreno, did you know your outdoor two mile record was broken last May after standing for 31 years.
Did you even know you held the record, probably not.
Petaluma’s Sterling Lockert and Santa Rosa’s Reesey Byers received some press last spring for breaking the Redwood Empire record in the 3,200 meter distance race, Lockert running 9:01.32 and Byers at 9:06.93. The record was believed to have been held by Petaluma’s Jon Sisler from the 1974 State meet.
Problem is, the time reported for Sisler in The Press Democrat on June 3, 1974 now appears to have been wrong.
The paper that day reported that “Sisler ran his best-ever race, finishing in 9:10.0, but he placed 11th.”
Ever since that article, the 9:10.0 has stood as the Empire record. When the race was changed to 3,200 meters the record was converted to 9:07.05.
In last year’s State Meet the long distance race was again an amazing event just like the one in 1974. I thought it would be fun to take a look back and compare the two great races. Funny thing as I started to put together my chart comparing the two races, I noticed something interesting, Sisler’s time was not 9:10.0.
The 1974 race was all that it was cracked up to be but Sisler’s official time was 9:14.8 in 12th place. Oops.
Well, that did make Sisler the record holder at that time surpassing Montgomery’s Bob Waldon’s 9:15.5 from 1966, Waldon is still the Viking’s school record holder. The real problem was that Piner’s Armand Moreno, who in 1978 ran 9:14.0 for two miles, never got recoginized as the Empire record holder until now.
Thus for 31 years it was actually Moreno who has held the record at a converted 9:11.03 for 3200. It also means that Lockert first broke the record at the North Coast Section finals when he ran 9:09.48.
February 6th of this year Moreno also lost his indoor 2 mile Redwood Empire record. In the winter of 1978 Moreno ran 9:33 competing in the Examiner Games at the Cow Palace in San Francisco.
Byers is the new record holder in that event having run 9:30.62 at Save Mart Center in Fresno.
Moreno had other records. He held the Sonoma County League Finals record for the 1600 at 4:21.7, converted, from 1978. Only one SCL runner ever went faster in the 1600 and it took 34 years for that record to fall as Petaluma’s Ryan Douglas ran 4:20.69 in 2012.
Moreno won both the Mile and 2 mile in both 1977 and 1978. He lowered the record in the longer race from the old 9:41.4 to 9:32.8. That one only lasted a year as another Prospector, Brian Hoyt, ran the still standing 9:30.2.
In cross country Moreno won the SCL title his senior year leading Piner to a near perfect score of 16 in 1977.
So let’s just say congratulations to Sisler, Moreno and Lockert on incredible high school careers. And to Byers, now a senior, we look forward to what you do this spring. Hey maybe the first ever sub 9!
And yes Byers did run our first sub 9.
8:59.89 Reesey Byers, Santa Rosa 2010
8:55.43 Luis Luna, Piner 2011
Here is a little more about the 1978 season.